The generation of ‘68 thought that they had invented a new morality. But the biology that Ginny just wrote about can not be denied, and a lot of that biological imperative was captured in the traditional ways of doing things. My personal private morality is traditional Judeo-Christian. However, I do feel that there should be some room for experimentation, and I do not necessarily believe that my morals should be etched on society’s stone tablets, which is why I call myself a libertarian (small “l” deliberate). But I have a really bad feeling whenever reformers want to go to fast in changing mores that have developed over millennia. As Megan said elsewhere in the article I linked to above, if you don’t know why the fence was put there, you should not be allowed to knock it down.

We've offered our impression that MSM coverage in Iraq differs markedly from normal war coverage. At one time, such coverge included reports about battles, territory lost and gained, and the like. Now, it tends to be only about death counts. And since the administration, afraid of comparisons to Vietnam, doesn't like to provide enemy death counts, the reporting is almost always adverse.

Today, however, AP reports that Iraqi troops attacked insurgents plotting to kill pilgrims (AP says "allegedly plotting") near Najaf, and that Iraqi officials estimated that approximatley 250 militants died in the ensuing daylong battle. In addition, 10 insurgents were captured, including one from Sudan. Iraqi forces, backed by the U.S., fought the battle, during which a U.S. helicopter was shot down and the two members of its crew were killed.

Yeah. I noticed that too. Most of the news coverage of the war shows our soldiers as targets for the enemy. "Bang, boom, another American or Iraqi killed: and that's the news from Iraq."

But that's what happens I guess when you hire the enemy to do the reporting for you.

And lo and behold, all of Kerry’s inflammatory statements have been edited out of his clip. They cut out Kerry’s “international pariah” statement, and his Kyoto Protocol stuff. They also cut out the bits about viewing the world through “an American lens.”

Looks like someone’s been trying to make sure they don’t have any Eason Jordan moments slipping out to the hoi polloi. (via LittleGreenFootballs)

Sunday, January 28, 2007

There is a myth out there, widely believed by the Left, that the US supplied Saddam with chemical weapons during his war with Iran.

At one website a poster named Alfie commented:

Sure we didn’t sell Saddam chemical weapons, Tom.

What do you think Rummy was dropping off for Saddam in the famous handshake photo?

The evidence he supplied was a

U.S. State Department memo to Lawrence Eagleburger (then Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs - the number three at State) dated November 22, 1982, entitled “Iraqi Use of Chemical Weapons”. Alphie provided this memo with the intent of demonstrating that the U.S. government was aware of the Iraqi use of chemical weapons, a contention I think is supported by the memo.

The problem for Alfie is that the memo says exactly the opposite of what he contended. Read the entire post, but it is filled with language like this:

In keeping with our policy of seeking a halt to CW use wherever it occurs, we have been considering the most effective means to halt further Iraqi CW use including, as a first step, a direct approach to Iraq.

and this:

because it is a long-standing policy of the U.S. to oppose the use of lethal CW

and this:

Over many decades the U.S. has sought to deter the use of lethal and incapacitating CW when their use appeared to loom as a possibility. Iraq’s use of lethal or incapacitating CW could further undercut an important agreement observed by nearly all nations against chemical warfare.

What's puzzling is how people can take this memo and still believe that we supplied chemical weapons to Saddam.

Why does CAIR raise such a fuss when a television show dares to show Muslims as terrorists? No other group seems to mind when its members play the bad guys. Maybe it's because they can shrug it off as pure fiction. But for CAIR, it seems to hit a little too close to home.

If CAIR wants to stop Muslims from being stereotyped as terrorists, it shouldn't be worrying about American movies and television shows. It should be worrying about Muslim terrorists.

And it would be well to remember, for those who rejoice in watching George Bush pay the penalty for his errors, that the Wheel may round on us too. That one day we may awake to world grown weary of our childhood. Alone in the movies. And the lawmen gone away.

Sgt. Mom wrote:

I think that basically, they're too afraid to actually make movies dealing with it all... I wrote about this in a memo to Hollywood in mid 2003:"...since even mentioning the Religion of Peace ™ in connection with things like terrorism, mass-murder, and international plots for a new caliphate is a guarantee to bring CAIR and other fellow travelers seething and whining in your outer office… ohh, best not. Drag out those old villainous standby Nazis, or South American drug lords, even the odd far-right survivalist for your theatrical punch-up, secure in the knowledge that even if you piss off what few remains of them, at least they won’t be unleashing a fatwa on your lazy ass, or sending a suicide bomber into Mortens’. Just ignore the three large smoking holes in the ground; cover your eyes and pretend it away. Never happened, religion of peace, all about oil, la-la-lah, fingers in my ears, I can’t hear you.

One thing I've learned over the course of my 35 years, is that when you have a customer service issue and the lower level support staff won't help you, it helps to go to their supervisors to get a satisfactory resolution. So what do you do when the person blocking your attempted to remedy the situation is senior management?

-- IT'S hard to watch an old pal hit the skids, making one disastrous decision after another, throwing away a brilliant future. That's the position we're in with Turkey - a former ally bent on self-destruction.

A NATO member ideally positioned to serve as a bridge between the West and the Middle East, Turkey's secular constitution and economic progress should have made it an example for other regional states to emulate. Instead, Turkey has been aping the blighted regimes of the Arab world:

Read the rest.

But if you think that the march of Islamofascism is limited to Afghanistan and the Iraq is an unnecessary war, consider the problems with Turkey, observe the riots in France, the bombs in England, Spain and Bali, the insurgencies in Indonesia and the Philippines and you will realize that we are in world War 3. But many deny it.

Why did the new Democratic majority select Senator James Webb (D-VA) to give the Democratic response to the president’s State of the Union Address? Since when does this privilege fall to a freshman, even a freshman senator? It’s seems that despite the bad experience with nominating John Kerry to be their standard bearer in 2004, the Democrats have learned nothing. At least they recognize that they have a serious national security credibility problem but the leadership and the base simply cannot get beyond Vietnam. Hence, they asked a US Marine officer turned novelist, turned Navy Secretary, turned Democrat to present their--well, their opposition to all things Bush, because one certainly did not hear ANY tangible plans. Senator Webb is a graduate of my alma mater, the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis. He is a highly decorated Marine from Vietnam who unlike Senator Kerry actually and definitively earned his commendations for bravery and valor in combat. His novels have sold very well because he is a very talented writer. But on close inspection, something about Senator Webb is very disturbing. Perhaps it harkens all the way back to his midshipman days in Annapolis and a simple boxing match lost. You see, James Webb lost a boxing match to a man he clearly despises, Oliver North. Webb, as chronicled by Robert Timberg in his best-selling book, The Nightingale’s Song, was heavily favored to beat North in the Brigade boxing championships but lost. Timberg claims that Webb believed he was intentionally denied the title by poor preparation from his coach, or more accurately the boxing coach made sure Ollie was better prepared to beat him! Regardless, Webb believes he was wronged and today we can see this streak of vengeance in him. More on this later.

one of the subtlest of rhetorical deceptions is the presentation of a non-representative case as if it were the norm. This is often accomplished by an unjustified aggregation of cases. Consider Thomas Sowell's classic example:

Did you know that 13 million American wives have suffered murder, torture, demoralization or discomfort at the hands of left-handed husbands? It may be as rare among left-handers as among right-handers for a husband to murder or torture his wife, but if the marriages of southpaws are not pure, unbroken bliss, then their wives must have been at least momentarily discomforted by the usual marital misunderstandings. The number may be even larger than 13 million. Yet one could demonize a whole category of men with statistics showing definitional catastrophes. While this particular example is hypothetical, the pattern is all too real. Whether it is sexual harassment, child abuse, or innumerable other social ills, activists are able to generate alarming statistics by the simple process of listing attention-getting horrors at the beginning of a string of phenomena and listing last those marginal things which in fact supply the bulk of their statistics. [From The Vision Of The Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy.]

So we have Neil Lewis of The NY Times publishing "TimesLies" by saying (via JustOneMinute):

She testified that both Mr. Cheney and Mr. Libby were intensely interested in Ms. Wilson and her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV

But it turns out that there was no intense interest in Mrs. Wilson. Click on the link and read the transcript.

Except for 10 or 20 seconds when you recollect you told Mr. Libby and VP Cheney about Wilson’s trip and his wife’s role, you had no other discussions with either of them about Mrs. Wilson?“Not that I recall.”

At no time during the talking points discussion, did you mention Mrs. Wilson? No.

What we have here is the editorial desire of the Times to create the impression that the Wilsons - as a couple - were the focus of the Vice President's office; that Scooter Libby was as focused on Mrs. Wilson as he was on Mr. Wilson and his lies about his trip to Niger. And this is simply false. It is as false as conflating people who murder their wives with those that have harmless spats.

Richard Landes at the Augean Stables describes the psychological death spiral of those who have been convinced that Resistance is Futile. It works like this. Since fighting only makes things worse one submits. And the more one submits the more Resistance is Futile

[snip]

The lever is there, for anyone who dares to pull it. So what is the way out? Fearless leadership; the steady compass of one who is not afraid to lose seats in Congress and reviled on every occasion; the rock-firm hand of a man who is not afraid to lose an election to do the right thing. But if it requires that kind of sacrifice then ... Resistance is futile.

Rockefeller accuses Cheney of cooking the books to get us into war. Flopping Aces reminds us of a few things:

Let's see, Rockefeller was head of the Sen Intel Com (SSCI) before the vote on war in 2002. He had seen consistent intel on Iraq for years. He came out and was even more hawkish that W ever was. He said there was unmistakable evidence Saddam was making nukes. If there is ONE person who had access to all the intel, it was Rockefeller. As soon as the vote was over, he became a dove.

We know from the Rockefeller memo that he did his 180 just for purely political reasons. He sought to divide the nation at a time of war. Me, I see that as treason, or at least action warranting a censure. From 2003 forward he demanded investigations into the intel. 2004 came around, investigation showed there was no pressure, manipulation, creation, or misuse of intel. He demanded a comparison of the pre-war claims to post-war finds. He got it, and it showed people were just plain wrong-nothing more. Then he raved that W had pressured the then SSCI Chair to stall those investigations. He's still making that claim...problem is...now he's head of SSCI. If the Phase II version 3 investigation were politically held up as this liar claims, then it would effectively have been complete in 2006 when the Phase II version 1 and version 2 were released-or at least complete now.

So where is it Senator? If VP Cheney put pressure on the previous SSCI Chairman to not release the last phase of the investigations into pre-war intel, then why don't YOU release it? Your the head of the SSCI.

Why are the only movies on the war favorable to the Islamofascists? The FBI tried to change this, but...

But if they're hoping that their seminar will win them props from filmmakers in general — a picture or two celebrating their courageous work in the war on terror — I suspect they are going to be disappointed. In the history of our time as told by the movies, the war on terror largely does not exist.

Which is passing strange, you know. Because the war on terror is the history of our time. The outcome of our battle against the demographic, political and military upsurge of a hateful theology and its oppressive political vision will determine the fate of freedom in this century.

Television — more populist, hungrier for content and less dependent on foreign audiences — reflects this fact with shows such as "24" and "The Unit." But at the movies, all we're getting is home-front angst and the occasional "Syriana," in which "moderate" Islam is thwarted by evil American interests. But the notion that this war is about our moral failings is comfort fantasy, pure and simple. It soothes us with the false idea that, if we but mend ourselves, the scary people will leave us alone.

Friday, January 26, 2007

The wealthy poverty summiteers were having themselves a party but didn't invite the starving children of Kenya's mean streets.

So the kids came and took the food.

Dozens of street children have invaded a five-star hotel food tent and feasted on meals meant for sale at the World Social Forum in Kenya's capital.The hungry urchins were joined by other participants who complained that the food was too expensive at the annual anti-capitalist get together.

The police, caught unawares, were unable to stop the free-for-all that saw the food containers swept clean.

The gathering in Nairobi is discussing social problems, including poverty.

A plate of food at the tent being operated by the prestigious Windsor Hotel was selling for $7 in a country where many live on less than $2 a day.

Day by Day

In his dissent on the constitutionality of the McCain-Feingold bill to gag free speech prior to elections, Scalia reminds us that our "electeds" really dislike dissent.

Here is what Scalia wrote (citations removed):

[L]et us not be deceived. While the Government's briefs and arguments before this Court focused on the horrible "appearance of corruption," the most passionate floor statements during the debates on this legislation pertained to so-called attack ads, which the Constitution surely protects, but which Members of Congress analogized to

"crack cocaine," (remarks of Sen. Daschle),

"drive-by shooting[s]," ... (remarks of Sen. Durbin),

"air pollution," ... (remarks of Sen. Dorgan).

There is good reason to believe that the ending of negative campaign ads was the principal attraction of the legislation. A Senate sponsor said, "I hope that we will not allow our attention to be distracted from the real issues at hand-how to raise the tenor of the debate in our elections and give people real choices. No one benefits from negative ads.

They don't aid our Nation's political dialog." ... (remarks of Sen. McCain). He assured the body that "[y]ou cut off the soft money, you are going to see a lot less of that [attack ads]. Prohibit unions and corporations, and you will see a lot less of that.

If you demand full disclosure for those who pay for those ads, you are going to see a lot less of that . . . ." ... (remarks of Sen. McCain). ...

Remarks of Sen. Cantwell: "This bill is about slowing the ad war. . . . It is about slowing political advertising and making sure the flow of negative ads by outside interest groups does not continue to permeate the airwaves"

Remarks of Sen. Boxer: "These so-called issues ads are not regulated at all and mention candidates by name. They directly attack candidates without any accountability. It is brutal . . . . We have an opportunity in the McCain-Feingold bill to stop that . . ."

Remarks of Sen. Wellstone: "I think these issue advocacy ads are a nightmare. I think all of us should hate them . . . . [By passing the legislation], [w]e could get some of this poison politics off television").

It's was not to get the "dirty money" out of politics that these latter day book burners passed McCain-Feingold; it was the desire to shut up the opposition. To silence the critics. To make it easier to get re-elected.

On this business of race and authenticity: it’s striking that the most viable black Presidential candidates each party has produced to date – Barack Obama, Colin Powell – are both almost entirely removed from the black experience in America. General Powell is less “African-American” than Jamaican-British – had he run and won, he won have been the first President to be the son of British subjects since the early 19th century. His autobiography is full of observations about the difference between his background and those of most blacks:

A young lieutenant offers the following parable about what the military has been called upon to do:

“So a man is in a horrible car accident. He is wheeled in to the OR, and the most elite, prestigious surgeon in the world goes to work. He operates, without rest, for 24 hours straight. All the man's organs are put back where they belong and the internal injuries are fixed. The surgeon collapses, exhausted, and calls for the suture doctor to come in and close the wounds. The problem is, the suture doctor is afraid of blood. He insists he won't come in and sew the guy up until the bleeding has stopped. The surgeon yells that the bleeding won't stop until the sutures are in, and he isn't trained to do it, isn't allowed to do it, and the suture doctor has the keys to the suture cabinet with all the supplies. Meanwhile, the man is dying on the table. Too bad, says the suture doctor, this isn't what I went to med school for, I made it clear when I came to work in this hospital that I don't like blood and only work when there isn't any danger that the patient will die. So now, the hospital is trying to train the exhausted surgeon, who hasn't slept in 36 hours, how to do sutures with different equipment, since the suture doctor doesn't like people touching the stuff in his cabinet. Welcome to Iraq....”

While Webb favors a "formula that will in short order allow our combat forces to leave Iraq," our forces in South Korea have been there for nearly six decades. Something tells me the antiwar base of the Democratic party doesn't have that sort of timetable in mind for Iraq.So, except for the fact that the Korean War didn't end, our troops are still there, and the outcome has been the source of humanitarian and national-security nightmares, Webb's salute to Eisenhower's statesmanship really strikes home.

As long as we have revived the practice of celebrating multicultural milestones (briefly suspended when Condoleezza Rice became the first black female to be secretary of state), let us pause to note that Mrs. Clinton, if elected, would be the first woman to become president after her husband had sex with an intern in the Oval Office.

If John Warner thinks Dave Petraeus doesn’t know what he’s talking about, he should explain why that’s the case in a detailed fashion. The same goes for Susan Collins, Norm Coleman, Gordon Smith and the rest of the pro-resolution gang. But I haven’t heard a Senator from either side of the aisle explain why he or she thinks the surge will fail with anything more comprehensive than Andrew’s virtual sound byte. When General Petraeus testified in the Senate yesterday, the Senators doing the questioning were loath to engage him in a tactical debate, clearly sensing their limitations. Yet without Petraeus in the room, the same Senators promise to be uninhibited when it comes time to vote for a resolution that will say in effect that Petraeus is wrong about the tactics he is pursuing.

Eighteen House Republicans have urged the Justice Department to proceed with a polygraph test for Samuel R. Berger, the former national security adviser who agreed to take the test as part of a plea of guilty of stealing documents from the National Archives.

First of all, as a historian of civil society, of the millennium-long struggle in the West to achieve this extraordinary marvel of the modern world, this experiment in human freedom, I want to say: European democratic civilization can fall before the Islamic challenge. Something similar happened before, in the 5th century, when a culturally superior Roman civilization fell to a primitive tribal Germanic culture. And if Europe continues on its current path, that will happen sooner rather than later.

Second, this is going to get worse before it gets better. Starting in October 2000, the most terrible form of apocalyptic movement, active cataclysmic – we are the agents in the vast destruction that precedes our millennial victory – entered the public sphere of world culture and rather than being beaten back, took hold and grew stronger. Once these movements, which in the past have killed 10s of millions, “take,” they are like forest fires. They cannot be stopped, at best they can be channeled. We are in for a long and unpleasant conflict that will demand a great deal from us.

Third, modern media play a critical role in Global Jihad’s success. Not just the use Jihadis make of modern technology to spread their message, but the role our modern MSM play in both disguising and encouraging the phenomenon. And the core of the problem, the ground upon which this dysfunctional relationship between Jihad and MSM first emerged, but also the most dramatic on which it plays out, is the MSM’s treatment of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

[snip]

My advice to the Israeli and Jewish people: Know who you are.

[snip]

My advice to the Israeli government: Open a mouth. Go on the offensive. Stop beating your breasts in agony over civilian lives that your enemies happily sacrifice into the maw of their death cults in front of an eager media that can turn the grotesque parade of dead children at Kafr Qana into a tale of Hizbullah resistance to Israeli aggression.

[snip]

My advice to Jews in the diaspora: Stop being embarrassed by the media-driven image that you get of Israel.

[snip]

My advice to Europeans: Get over the politics of resentment in which you so want to see George Bush forced to leave Iraq that you don’t even think about the impact that will have on arousing your own Muslim populations against you, including those who will come from triumphant Iraq to your continent.

[snip]

My advice to journalists, especially to the young ones. Be true to your profession – a noble one — not to your guild; to your standards and your readers – not your editors and your peer group. You move today in a drama akin to The Emperor’s New Clothes, where your guild plays the role of courtiers, insisting that the politically correct, post-colonial garment fits the situation magnificently.

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Don’t bother standing up or clapping, any of you. I already know who won the election, and I know how you feel.

I come before you tonight not to make amends, not to make it good, curry any favor or find any middle ground.

I am, more or less, a lame duck. You’ve had your 100 hours of party time. I know. I won’t get any legislation passed without some major bottom-kissing. Maybe something on illegal aliens. That health insurance thing I’ll be talking about later tonight is pretty much for show. I know it isn’t going anywhere. A proposal to raise middle-class taxes for a healthcare plan you don’t even want? What was I thinking?

None of that really matters. Not now. Those are peacetime issues we’ve been bickering about for a long time, and I don’t expect we’ll resolve them anytime soon.

So what is the best thing I can do tonight? I can tell you the truth. What none of you want to hear. What you’ve been stopping your ears to. The ugly truth.

The State of the Union is a disaster. I did my best, but I made mistakes, and my best wasn’t good enough.

We went to war without building up our army, and now, I am trying to make up for that.

But that is not the disaster.

The disaster is that you, Congress and the American people, do not care to fight.

Faced with a fundamental challenge to our own security, to everything we believe in, to the world order to peace and security for which we and our parents fought so hard for so many years, you now want to pretend like none of these threats are real. You want to surrender to the evil I have been telling you about. An evil that, unchecked, can consume large parts of the world and threatens to usher in a dark age.

You didn’t like it when I talked about evil. Sounded too simple, too uncompromising, too moralistic. Too … biblical.

I don’t know what else you call people who fly passenger jets into office buildings; who rape women in front of their husbands and children, and execute their opponents in acid baths; who seek to spread tyrannical and archaic religious regimes that enslave women and stifle fundamental freedoms. Who want to dominate the world’s primary oil fields with nuclear weapons.

Monday, January 22, 2007

Dr. Helen comments on her experience with Journalists .... and then others chime in:

Neo-neocon has an interesting post on her experience with the Psychology Today article on "fearful" conservatives and "rational" liberals. She was interviewed for this particular article and surprisingly, her interview was left out of the article. Perhaps she didn't tell the interviewer what they wanted to hear. I have this happen frequently. XYZ magazine, TV show, etc. calls me and asks my opinion on X and I give my unfiltered response--usually not what they want to hear--and the familiar, "We'll get back to you, uhh....real soon"-click is the typical reply. I have even been told by some shows that "we will just keep looking for someone who agrees with our point of view." "Good luck," I tell them. My feeling on most interviews etc. is that if I cannot say what I want or it will be edited to the point that I do not recognize my words, why do it?

Friday, January 19, 2007

Jonah Goldberg has a new essay out that has some amazing quotes and raises some thought provoking issues:

First the quote:

Sen. Arlen Specter (R., Pa.), declared this month, “It is scandalous that eight years have passed since we have known about stem cell research and the potential to conquer all known maladies, and federal funds have not been available for the research.”

All . . . known . . . maladies? Really? Before that, John Edwards all but promised that a vote for John Kerry was a vote for Christopher Reeve to walk again.

The promises made by the embryonic stem cell research advocates are breath taking, and scandalous!

Now some thoughts:

Simply because science can do something is in no way an argument that it should (or shouldn’t) do it. Science is morally neutral. Science kills and science cures. Which is why it’s so disturbing that both left and right have bought into the rhetoric of science as a source of morality. Scientists themselves tend to understand the moral ambiguity of science, which is why they spend so much time arguing about professional ethics.

For example, everybody agrees that life-ending experimentation on a 5-year-old boy would be wrong. But what if such research could solve “all human maladies?” Would it be wrong then? More relevant, would it be “anti-science?”

Yes, yes, ESCR advocates reject comparing embryos to fully developed humans.But that misses the point on two scores.

First, the determination that embryos have no moral worth is not a scientific conclusion but a moral one. Second, rejecting the comparison doesn’t answer the question: Is it anti-science to bar certain procedures on moral grounds?

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Virginian Pilot Outrage of the Day

As is common in most of the MSM, the Virginian Pilot’s “letters to the editor” are a close reflection of its editorial position. The few exceptions, as they say “prove the rule.” That is why – as an example - in a community surrounded by military personnel, the letters to the editor are overwhelmingly against the Iraq war even though the military – and especially the military families involved in the fighting – are the strongest supporters of the war.

My friend, Ted Galanides, recently had a rare letter printed that was critical of the Norfolk Forum for inviting so many Liberals speakers. In particular he referred to a recent speech by Bill Moyers, the very controversial host of a Leftist TV program on PBS. He was so disgusted by Moyers that he walked out.

In response the Pilot has taken the not-unusual position of printing several letters criticizing Ted and defending the Norfolk Forum and Bill Moyers. The latest, a letter by Norfolk Forum Board member Charles McPhillips characterized the Moyers rant this way: “with the notable exception of Mr. Galanides the large audience for Mr. Moyers remained at Chrysler Hall in rapt attention until the end of his eloquent address, after which he received a rare standing ovation.”

"Rapt attention?" "Eloquent address?" Not the Bill Moyers I know and loathe. The one who instructed the FBI to find homosexuals in Barry Goldwater's campaign and the author of the infamous "Daisy and Atomic Explosion" ad that the Johnson campaign ran against Goldwater.

Moyers stated, "I think that if Kerry were to win this in a tight race, I think that there would be an effort to mount a coup, quite frankly. I mean that the right-wing is not going to accept it."[9]

That “rare” standing ovation is one of those phenomena that I have experienced myself. All it takes to start one is to get to your feet, urge your friends to do the same and in a few seconds people around you are psychologically bullied into standing up so as not to appear sullen.

I differ with Ted in one respect. Had I seen Moyers on the program, I would not have walked out; I would not have gone to the Forum in the first place. I have better ways of abusing myself for a few hours, and I can do it in the comfort of my own home.

Ann makes a point that cannot be overemphasized. The primary lies told in the MSM are lies of omission. It's what they leave out that is the lie.

The first part of the story — the lie part — was angrily reported in the Times. But as the accuser's story began to unravel, the Times gave only a selective account of the facts, using its famed lie-by-omission technique.

Among the many gigantic omissions from the Times' pretend-balanced article ("Files From Duke Rape Case Give Details but No Answers") is the fact that the only remaining particulars about the case that are not completely exculpatory come from a memo by Sgt. Mark Gottlieb — written four months after the alleged incident.

Gottlieb, the lead investigator on the alleged rape case, took no contemporaneous notes when he interviewed the accuser, but rather waited for the facts to come in — and his case to be falling apart — to write a memo recalling her statements during that initial investigation. The statements he recalled were surprisingly favorable to the prosecution!

The only problem with his memo, besides being preposterous on its face, is that it is contradicted by the contemporaneous notes taken by other people involved in the investigation. Indeed, the only thing Gottlieb's memo was consistent with were the facts as the prosecution was then alleging them.

Of course, it was hard to keep straight what facts the prosecution was alleging. The accuser made up so many stories about the incident that the Times was forced to offer her Jayson Blair's old position.

The Times "No Answers" article gave no indication that Gottlieb's memo was written four months after the alleged rape, but rather refers to it as the policeman's "case notes," falsely suggesting the notes were taken during the investigation and not after the frame-up.

Beginning with the strongest invented evidence from Gottlieb's "case notes," the Times reported that the nurse who examined the alleged rape victim told Gottlieb that the "blunt force trauma" seen in the examination "was consistent with the sexual assault that was alleged by the victim."

Or at least that's what Gottlieb wrote four months after talking to the nurse. It's not what the nurse wrote the night she examined the accuser. To the contrary, the only sign of physical trauma the nurse noted in her written report immediately after examining the accuser were some superficial scratches on the woman's knee and heel.

Indeed, in all 24 pages of the report prepared by doctors and nurses who examined the accuser the night of the alleged rape, there is no mention of any "blunt force trauma" or any injuries other than the scratches.

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

According to 88 leading members of the Duke faculty this is what students will find on campus:

Social Disaster

Rape

Racism,

Segregation,

Isolation

Sexism

Sexual violence

Protesters making collective noise.

And those are just the most prominent issues facing you as a student at the Durham campus.

Of course if you happen to be a white lacrosse player, bring your lawyer to campus with you. You'll need representation and a big budget. On the other hand, if you are a black basketball player, bring your copy of Tom Wolfe's "I am Charlotte Simmons." Its an instruction manual on getting it on with the willing coeds on campus.

Duke Lacrosse Mother Letter

Prof. Holloway,

I am the mother of a Duke Lacrosse player. After reading your article in September, I penned a response. I held off sending it, to see if my thoughts would change as my anger subsided. Unfortunately, my anger has not subsided. I do not want to prejudge you as those who prejudged the innocent Duke Three and the entire lacrosse team. Therefore, I respectfully request you respond to my letter so I may better understand why you would write such a vile article. Below is my response to your article.

I sit and ponder, how could any woman be so cruel and callous, and judge a whole class of individuals without any facts. What was more puzzling and definitely more alarming was that you had a son convicted of rape and attempted murder, and who was going to be tried for the murder of two others. It has always been my belief that educators not only had a moral obligation but a duty to have an open mind and to encourage your students to do the same. I teach History to high school students. Clearly, you do not understand this obligation. My first reaction was to attack, but what would be the sense. I wondered, do you attack our sons, because you feel guilt for your own failures as a mother? Do you attack our sons, because you are so selfish that you cannot stand the thought of our sons leading successful lives, when your son did not and can not? Do you attack our sons to justify your own short comings? Do you attack our sons because it's easier than looking yourself in the mirror? Do you attack our sons because they are innocent and your son was not? The answer may be yes to all of those questions. How sad for you that you have been reduced to a pathetic, heartless individual. While people with souls and hearts, would suffer and wallow in their own pain for a while, when the dust settles, they would fight to turn a tragic situation into something positive. Instead, you are so self centered, you have made yourself the victim in your son's death and in the Duke hoax.

"We all leave footprints in the sand, the question is, will we be a big heal, or a great soul." - Source Unknown

This week I was touched by two families who have suffered the worst imaginable loss in any parent's life, the loss of a child. One was Rachel Scott, age 17, the first person killed at Columbine, the second was Louis Acompora, age 14, killed while playing the game he loved, lacrosse, by a syndrome known as commotio cordis. What struck me is that both these remarkable young individuals were able to leave a lasting legacy that has and will continue to touch million of hearts and souls. Rachel Scott's legacy has been the formation of Rachael's Challenge which challenges us and inspires us all to do random acts of kindness. Louis Acompora's foundation has saved countless individuals by making defibulators available in schools and other public areas.

Though I cannot compare the loss of a child, with the loss of a child's trust in the kindness and goodness of man, I wrestle with what will be the legacy of our sons and our families as we emerge from this travesty of justice. Rachel Scott said, "Look hard enough and you'll always find a light." So I have challenged myself to find "my light".

At this time the path is dim for I have not let go of the anger and rage I feel against Nifong for creating and continuing this hoax for his own personal and political gain; against the Duke administration for abandoning our sons, even today as the evidence clearly shows their innocence, and using the lacrosse team and Coach Pressler as the scapegoats in a feeble attempt to protect Duke's reputation; against some of the Duke faculty for condemning and harassing our sons without a scintilla of evidence to further their own philosophical agendas; and against [accuser's name withheld] for not having the courage to end this charade by telling the truth.

However, I also recognize that to find the light I must choose forgiveness. Forgiveness does not mean I do not want Nifong disbarred or Duke to walk away without an apology to our sons. Forgiveness is just the ceasing to feel resentment and anger. I am not there today, but I am at a point that I must consider the possibility that there is a "light", for if I do not, I will find myself like you, Professor Holloway, a sad, bitter, resentful woman, attempting to squash the dreams of others because after your own personal tragedy you were not able to find your "light" and therefore have no dreams of your own.

When Colin, Reade and Dave are exonerated, what will be our legacy? I believe these three courageous young men will be great souls. They have showed us over the past six months how to handle adversity with class and dignity that is beyond their years. Each one of these young men will leave lasting imprints on all those they touch. They will have entered the eye of a hurricane and come out to tell others abut it. The legacy of the lacrosse team will be that of "truth". We will not stop, no matter what, in our quest to let the world know the truth of what transpired on March 13/14, the lacrosse team has stood steadfast in the events that occurred, even after being vilified publicly.

But what will my legacy be? I need to find a goal, as do many of the mothers and fathers of the lacrosse team, so we will be able to try to make sense out of something that has no sense. It may be a crusade to protect the "accused's" identity in rape cases much like the accuser's. Sadly, even when the young men are exonerated, there will still be many who will characterize the lacrosse team as "rapists". There will still be whispers. Many still want to turn a blind eye to the facts. Without any evidence the Durham Police Department, put our son's pictures on a "Wanted Poster" and published it in main stream national media for days. Colin, Reade and Dave's pictures, continue to be shown in the mainstream media. I hope I am able to emerge from this travesty with a vision to make the choice to make a change to protect other innocent young men.

I live the negative impact of this hoax daily knowing the three families live it greater than I do. I hope that one day I have the strength to choose to make a positive impact for if I don't, I may waste my life, like you, Prof. Holloway, wallowing in self pity. You are a big heel in the sand, I chose to be a great soul.

The Scott and Acompora families will be my inspiration! They will lead me to my light. You have also inspired me, of what I choose not to become.

Liberals and Conservatives - the Difference

The two most important events in all of history were the invention of beer, and the invention of the wheel. The wheel was invented to get man to the beer. These were the foundation of modern civilization and together were the catalyst for the splitting of humanity into two distinct subgroups:

Liberals; and Conservatives

Once beer was discovered, it required grain, and that was the beginning of agriculture. Neither the glass bottle nor the aluminum can were invented yet, so while our early humans were sitting around waiting for them to be invented, they just stayed close to the brewery.

That's how villages were formed

Some men spent their days tracking and killing animals to B-B-Q at night, while they were drinking beer. This was the beginning of what is known as the Conservative movement.

Other men, who were weaker and less skilled at hunting, learned to live off the Conservatives, by showing up for the nightly B-B-Q's, and doing the sewing, fetching, and hair dressing. This was the beginning of the Liberal movement.

Some of these Liberal men eventually evolved into women. The rest became known as "Girliemen".

Some noteworthy Liberal achievements; include the domestication of cats, the invention of group therapy, group hugs, and the concept of Democratic voting to decide how to divide the meat and beer that Conservatives provided.

Over the years Conservatives came to be symbolized by the largest, most powerful land animal on earth, the Elephant. Liberals are symbolized by the Jackass.

Modern liberals like imported beer (with lime added), but most prefer white wine or imported bottled water. They eat raw fish, but like their beef well done. Sushi, tofu, and French food are standard Liberal fare.

Another interesting evolutionary side note: most of their women have higher testosterone levels than their men. Most social workers, personal injury attorneys, journalists, dreamers in Hollywood and group therapists are Liberals. Liberals invented the" designated hitter rule" because it wasn't fair to make the pitcher also bat.

Conservatives drink domestic beer. They eat red meat and still provide for their women. Conservatives are big-game hunters, rodeo cowboys, lumberjacks, construction workers, firemen, medical doctors, police officers, corporate executives, athletes, Marines, and generally anyone who works productively. Conservatives who own companies hire other conservatives who want to work for a living.

Liberals produce little or nothing. They like to govern the producers and decide what to do with the production. Liberals believe Europeans are more enlightened than Americans. That is why most of the Liberals remained in Europe when conservatives were coming to America . They crept in after the Wild West was tamed and created a business of trying to get more for nothing.

Here ends today's lesson in world history:

It should be noted that a Liberal may have a momentary urge to angrily respond to the above before forwarding it.

A Conservative will simply laugh and be so convinced of the absolute truth of this history; that it will be forwarded immediately to other true believers and to more Liberals, just to piss them off.

On July 25, 1997, before the Kyoto Protocol was finalized (although it had been fully negotiated, and a penultimate draft was finished), the U.S. Senate unanimously passed by a 95–0 vote the Byrd-Hagel Resolution (S. Res. 98),[40] which stated the sense of the Senate was that the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol that did not include binding targets and timetables for developing as well as industrialized nations or "would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States". On November 12, 1998, Vice President Al Gore symbolically signed the protocol. Both Gore and Senator Joseph Lieberman indicated that the protocol would not be acted upon in the Senate until there was participation by the developing nations.[41] The Clinton Administration never submitted the protocol to the Senate for ratification.

And these are the people who claim that Jamil Hussein is real and all his 61 stories are true.

I don't know where they stand on apple pie, but the Democrats have come out for motherhood in a big way. In fact, who needs apple pie when you've got the extra-sugary content of the Washington Post? Last Wednesday, the capital's newspaper of record (now available in print, online and in granulated form) published a column headlined ''Grandma With A Gavel.''

Can you guess which grandma it was, boys and girls? Yes, it was Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has single-handedly, as she put it, ''shattered the marble ceiling.'' And she's right: From CNN to the New York Times, the entire press corps has lost its marbles. Grandma Smith Goes to Washington is the hit of the planet. At a time when most grandmothers are reduced to eating dog food because the Bush administration refuses to let them bulk-order prescription drugs from Saskatchewan or, even more horrifying, reduced to watching Robert Goulet in dinner theater night after night in Florida, Gran'ma Pelosi has single-handedly shattered the dinner-theater ceiling and/or dog-kennel ceiling. ''Grandma With A Gavel'' was written by hard-headed reporter Ruth Marcus, scourge of Republican Justice Departments for many years, and this column reflected her notoriously sharp forensic skills:

''The images as California Democrat Nancy Pelosi took office last week were striking -- and stirring -- in their unfamiliarity. Pelosi, holding her infant grandson swaddled in a white receiving blanket, as she sat in the well of the House, awaiting her election. Pelosi, with the assurance of a mother experienced at dispensing cookies to impatient toddlers, giving each child his -- and her -- turn with the gavel. Pelosi raising her hand to take the oath as her grandson, at her side, fiddled with grandma's papers.''

Golly. One only hopes the wee ones understand that, post-coronation, Queen Nancy's ascension to the throne might cut into all this quality time. "Gran'ma Got Run Over By Her Reign, Dears,'' as the old song so shrewdly warns. But don't Republicans have families, too? Yes, but let's face it, they creep you out, don't they? If you have the misfortune to be nominated by the Bush administration, your kids get headlines like ''An Image A Little Too Carefully Coordinated.'' That was the Washington Post's Style Section on Chief Justice John Roberts' moppets: They didn't care for ''the 1950s-style tableaux vivant,'' or the ''freshly scrubbed and adorable'' look from ''a Currier & Ives landscape''; they sniffed at the ''seersucker suit with short pants'' of ''towheaded Jack'' and his sister's ''blond pageboy''; they didn't even like the name ''Jack

Plastic Turkey Story

One of the problems with the MSM is that it's a one-way medium. THEY are telling YOU. You can write them a letter or make a phone call to try to get a correction, but the only part of the dialog that other people read is what THEY allow. The MSM essentially has a "mute" button on disagreement.

So if they tell a lie about either a big or small thing, we - the public - is left dependent on the whims of the person who first told the lie. They can either admit it or not. And if the MSM telling the lie is the source of information for a lot of other media outlets, the lie quickly becomes the "truth."

Correction: July 11, 2004, Sunday An article last Sunday about surprises in politics referred incorrectly to the turkey carried by President Bush during his unannounced visit to American troops in Baghdad over Thanksgiving. It was real, not fake.

Notice where it was found. Section 4, page 1, column 2. By this time the story about Bush's "plastic turkey" had turned into an urban myth spread throughout the world by the "repspected" NY Times and by all the papers tht picked up this story; and thier number is legion.

If it were up to the MSM, there would be no further questions about SandyBurger's pantload. It will be a test of the strength of the new media, the Internet bloggers et al, to see if we can find out from the politicos, the law enforcement officers, and perhaps the average citizen with a clue to find out what Sandy Burger and the Clintons wanted hidden from view.

Contrary to his initial denials and later excuses, Berger clearly intended from the outset to remove sensitive material from the Archives. He used the pretext of making and receiving private phone calls to get time alone with confidential material, although rules governing access dictated that someone from the Archives staff must be present. He took bathroom breaks every half-hour to provide further opportunity to remove and conceal documents.

[snip]

Politicians never like to admit mistakes. They see legitimate inquiries as politically inspired, which they often are. Changing the subject or shifting blame to others aren't tactics peculiar to the Clintons.

The Clintons, however, take the game of deny-deceive-and-distract to a new level. Their relentless personal attacks on Ken Starr were designed to undermine the credibility of information about Bill Clinton's perjury, to deflect attention from his own failings. Clinton's excessive reaction - complete with hyperbole, finger-wagging, and scolding - to a simple question from Fox News' Chris Wallace about his response to al-Qaeda is in the same vein. Something here touches a nerve.

That nerve is exposed in the Sandy Berger saga. This story at bottom is about the security of our nation, about what was - or was not - done to protect us from the most shocking and deadly attack on American citizens by foreign agents in our nation's history. This story is critical not only to understanding our past but also to securing our future. It can help us understand what it is reasonable to expect can be done to keep us and our loved ones safe from harm. It is, in short, as important a story as there is.

**********

It is a story the news media should be desperate to explore, not desperate to avoid.

They should want to know the full story, no matter what the implications are for the legacy of a president much loved by an overwhelmingly liberal media or what the risks are for a former First Lady whose future is tied to her husband's past. Those risks loom especially large before a field of potential Republican presidential candidates with strong reputations in security matters - like Rudy Giuliani, for example, whose courageous performance on 9/11 still resonates.

Those who wrap themselves so frequently in the mantra of the people's right to know should want to know the truth - all the time. Sadly, today's would-be Woodwards and Bernsteins look more like ostriches than hawks, showing no curiosity about what Sandy Berger was hiding. Had that been the attitude when Watergate first appeared as a minor news story, Richard Nixon would have served out his full second term. The rest, as they say, is history.

It appears that the letter "X" too closely resembles the Christian cross.

But here's the most interesting part of the article:

Among the commission's deeds is the famed 1974 fatwa — issued by its blind leader at the time, Sheik Abdul Aziz Ben Baz — which declared that the Earth was flat and immobile. In a book issued by the Islamic University of Medina, the sheik argued: "If the earth is rotating, as they claim, the countries, the mountains, the trees, the rivers, and the oceans will have no bottom."

The next time a Leftist, equating Islam with Christianity, says anything - let him have it with that fatwa.

Diana West has caught PBS in its usual role of bashing Christianity and shilling for Islam.

According to the show, Jews basically caused Anti-Semitism in the Arab-Muslim region around them by first building the tiny modern state of Israel (500 times smaller than that Arab Muslim region), and then actually trying to defend it against a host of Muslim armies and terror groups. As PBS tells it, it isn't the genocidal proclivities of surrounding Muslim nations that have caused war unending on the Jewish state; it's the continued existence of the Jewish state that has caused the genocidal proclivities. The show practically begs a viewer to ask, Well, what else could you expect?

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Responses to the article varied including typical attacks by liberal including one who uses the name of liberalgoodman.

I replied: I realize that name-calling is considered “reasoning” of “argument” by liberals so you are asked to understand liberalgoodman. It’s the way people like him communicate. What is interesting is the fact that no one siding with the Muslims on this issue addresses the fact that the Koran specifically instructs believing Muslims on the treatment of Jews: kill them, subjugate them, and – in the modern interpretation – destroy them as a people and as a nation. We are dealing here with both historical anti-Semitism, of which both Christians as well as Muslims are rightly accused, as well as the virulent anti-Semitism now practiced by Muslims. And this anti-Semitism is now an article of faith and freely expressed by large portions of the Left. I believe this is largely the result of the old belief that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

The Left now hates America, the Right, Bush and especially committed Christians so much that it has embraced anti-Semitism in solidarity with Islamofascists who are today the most visible, active and violent opponents of America.

liberalgoodman said:osthode: I understand why Jews wanted a country. Now you have to understand why Palestinians didn't want it to be theirs. Actually . . . I'm sure you do, but it's impossible to say it.

I replied: Here is another interesting example of being able to prove virtually anything assuming you can set the terms of the debate. For the Left, the Middle East’s history began with the establishment of the Jewish State. Forget about the establishment of the other States in the region, largely as the result of European nations drawing national borders and setting up native rulers. Forget about the history of the region before that, including the establishment of the original Jewish nation in Old-Testament times. Forget about the wars between Israel and its neighbors, the Roman conquest, the Diaspora and all the other bits and piece of history, both Jewish and non-Jewish. Forget about the Muslim wars of conquest during the rise of the Caliphate which almost overran Europe. No. the only, overriding irredeemable wrong done by any people anywhere in history was when Jews fled the death camps of Europe to settle in their “Promised Land” and took an unproductive desert and made it bloom. How dare they.

"Madam Secretary, please," she said. "I know you feel terrible about it. That's not the point. I was making the case as to who pays the price for your decisions."Consider the uproar if a Republican senator said something similar to, say, Janet Reno in the Clinton administration? But Boxer should get a free pass because she happens to be the same gender as Rice? No way.[snip]Going after the bollixed-up Iraq policy was fair game -- from senators of both parties, no question. Ripping the whole "surge" plan is also fine. But suggesting the secretary of state doesn't care about the human costs because she's childless?

And the Democrats wonder why the public is wary about their ability to govern with any sense of fairness or decency. It's this kind of haughty, condescending behavior that turned Americans against Democrats in the first place.

Well, anyway, I'll remember this great example that Sen. Boxer has given the country.

In turn, perhaps it might be good to remind the public about why a wealthy white Democratic woman of privilege has no problem supporting public schools that leave poor black kids uneducated and prepped for a lives of low wages and likely incarceration.

More vile comments like that above and it won't be too long before the country starts waxing nostalgic for that Republican majority -- a thought that Boxer's fellow Democrats don't want to consider.

The district attorney in the Duke lacrosse sexual assault case asked the state attorney general on Friday to take over the troubled prosecution, saying he faced a conflict of interest because of ethics charges filed against him by the state bar, officials involved in the case said.

The defendants, who are white, were initially portrayed as boys gone wild. But in time, with the fraying of the evidence and careful maneuvering by their legal team, [right, those shifty defense lawyers pointing out that one of the accused had irrefutable evidence that he was not in the house during the alleged rape] they emerged in news accounts as victims of a kind of reverse discrimination, promising young men whose lives were being destroyed by concocted accusations.

The accuser, who is black, was at first embraced at candlelight vigils. Investigators depicted her as the victim of a brutal assault. But her shifting and inconsistent accounts of what happened, combined with the absence of incriminating DNA [lots of DNA from numerous men in her orifices and panties, just not any from the accused] evidence, have resulted in her being branded a false accuser.

But no one was more fully transformed in this case than Mr. Nifong. Once an obscure but respected career prosecutor, [by whom? the NY Times?] he is now routinely portrayed as having recklessly and stubbornly pursued a weak case for political gain.

Mr. Nifong compounded his troubles with seemingly avoidable blunders, [a new term for ethical violations by a "respected career prosecutor] most in the earliest weeks, before anyone was indicted. He ordered a lineup that violated standard police procedures. [a lineup of just white lacrosse team members, there were no wrong answers for the accuser] He spoke misleadingly in public about evidence in the case and disparaged the Duke lacrosse team as “hooligans” whose “daddies” would “buy them big-time lawyers.” He refused to hear out defense lawyers who proffered photographs and phone records intended to prove their clients’ innocence. Most significantly, he mishandled the DNA test results [he lied about having exculpatory DNA test results] by failing to turn them over to defense lawyers for seven months.

The NY Times has tried its best to continue to build on the theme of rich white men rape poor black woman. It wants one of Tom Wolfe's "Great White Defendants." And if some kids from Duke get railroaded in this laudable cause, well, you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.

“The group will seek changes to state law that would require consent from both spouses--not just one--to secure a divorce in families with minor children.”

How does the Pilot’s crack staff headline their opposition? “Anti-divorce bill retreats on reform.”

“Reform” is one of the goo-goo words that denote good things are happening. “Retreat” if one of the doubleplus ungood words that means bad things are happening. So changing the law in a manner that the Pilot favors is “reform,” changes they don’t like is “retreat.”

Not that the Pilot’s crack staff is in favor of large numbers of divorces; no sir! After all, it supported gay marriage by pointing out that heterosexuals were divorcing right and left. “Sanctity of marriage?” “Hah” the Pilot’s crack staff sniffed.

And perhaps remembering that your bold pronouncements of yesteryear cannot be dropped down the memory hole as easily (the Internet’s search engines are diabolically clever at finding out you’re talking out of two sides of your mouth), the Pilot’s crack staff comes out four-square for saving good marriages while discarding bad ones. Their answer? Government sponsored marriage counseling.

I can see it now: “I’m from the government and I’m here to save your marriage.”

The Pilot’s crack staff has missed their calling. They are great comedic writers. Sign them up for the Tonight show.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Mr. Nifong is no anomaly--merely a product of the political times, a prosecutor who has absorbed all the clues about the sanctified status now accorded charges involving rape, child sex-abuse and accusations of racism. Which has in turn ensured their transformation into weapons of unequalled power. Like others before him, the DA quickly grasped the career possibilities open to him with such a case and proceeded accordingly--denouncing racism, and the rape and assault of a helpless black woman, and the Duke athletes guilty of these crimes in every media interview available to him (and they were many).

The latest on Jamil Husseingate: There is no Jamil Hussein

From Confederate Yankee:

And so a major Associated Press claim in "Jamilgate" takes an apparently fatal hit.

According to Bill Costlow of CPATT (Civilian Police Assistance Training Team) in Baghdad, and as forwarded by Lt. Michael Dean of Multinational Corps-Iraq/Joint Operations Command Public Affairs, our now infamous police captain in Iraq appears to be definitively not Jamil Hussein.

Nor is his name Jamil Gholaiem Hussein as stated repeatedly by the Associated Press Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll and other Associated Press employees.

Nor is his name Jamil Ghdaab Gulaim, as he has been called previously in other accounts. According to his personnel records at MOI, confirmed with BG Abdul-Kareem and then reportedly verified by BG Abdul-Karim Khalaf with AP's Baghdad sources, his name is actually Jamil Gulaim "XX".

The "XX" protects his second middle name and real last names, of which "Hussein" is not a part.

About a month after members of the Duke lacrosse team were falsely accused of raping a stripper last year, 88 members of the Duke faculty fanned the flames of hysteria by signing a letter announcing that they were "listening" to students "who know themselves to be objects of racism and sexism."

Maybe they should have been listening to the accused, several of whom had iron-clad alibis. Now the professors are going to need a new example of "racism and sexism" at Duke since their case in chief has turned out to be a fraud.

In lieu of a gang rape perpetrated by high-stepping white male athletes against a poor black woman, the Duke lacrosse case has turned out to be another in a long string of hoax hate crimes in which whites are falsely accused.

The lacrosse players denied that any rape had occurred and immediately submitted their DNA to the state, confident that the DNA would prove them innocent.

It did: Not a trace of DNA from any of the lacrosse players was found on the accuser, though this girl had more DNA in her than a refrigerator at a fertility clinic.

She had DNA from five other men, which ought to have raised suspicions about her story that she had not had sex with anyone for the week before the alleged gang rape. Well, that was one of the several versions of events the accuser has offered police to date, although my personal favorite was the one in which Elvis came back from the dead and sexually assaulted her. (I think that was version No. 3 — I'd have to check my notes.)

This is the second time this woman has accused a group of men of gang-raping her. One more time and it's officially considered a hobby.

And yet despite the vast privilege, untold wealth and bright shiny whiteness of the defendants, they are still under criminal indictment in this case. Three of the players face up to 30 years in prison for a crime every sane person knows they did not commit. Ah, the life of the privileged!

Duke English professor Cathy N. Davidson recently wrote an opinion piece defending her signing of the "listening" letter, noting that it was "not addressed to the police investigation," but rather "focused on racial and gender attitudes all too evident" after the alleged rape. She explained that the letter had merely "decried prejudice and inequality in the society at large."

This would be like defending a letter written during the Dreyfus affair on the grounds that the letter did not explicitly accuse Alfred Dreyfus of treason against France, but simply took the occasion of his arrest to decry the treasonable attitudes of the Jews in society at large.

If poor black women are constantly being raped by rich white men, then how about they produce one case?

Professor Davidson's column — written when it was clear to everyone except Nancy Grace that three innocent men were facing 30 years in prison for a rape they did not commit — notes that she remains "dismayed by the glaring social disparities implicit in what we know happened on March 13" and says the incident "underscores the appalling power dynamics of the situation."

OK, this one they made up, but the case still illustrates a larger truth!

If anything, our awareness of the "power dynamics of the situation" is too high. What we need is a little of that skepticism liberals bring to every single criminal case that is not a white-on-black crime or a rape case involving Bill Clinton.

The truth, as opposed to the larger truth, is that the allegedly powerful white males are at risk of losing their freedom at the hands of a lunatic accuser and a power-mad prosecutor. Meanwhile the allegedly powerless poor black woman has destroyed people's lives with her false accusations, for which she will walk away scot-free.

Don't liberals ever have to pony up at least one example of a powerful privileged white male trampling on the rights of a powerless black woman in order to keep droning on about powerful privileged white males? Every real-life example invariably turns out to be a hoax, among the most spectacular the Tawana Brawley case and now the Duke lacrosse case.

According to the Los Angeles Times — in an article about another hoax "hate crime" on a college campus — false reports of racist hate crimes on college campuses have averaged about one a year for 20 years.

Liberal professors believe that crying wolf is valuable for calling attention to the societal problem of wolves, even though there's never a wolf in any particular case. Evidently, awareness of an alleged societal ill — of which we have no actual examples — is worth ruining the lives of three innocent people. After all, they're just powerful white men.

At the next White Males of Privilege meeting, someone ought to bring up how they can use their vast power to win the right not to be put on trial for crimes they didn't commit.

A New Direction for America?

The stock market is at a new all-time high and America 's 401K's are back.A new direction from there means, what?

Unemployment is at 25 year lows.A new direction from there means, what?

Oil prices are plummeting.A new direction from there means, what?

Taxes are at 20 year lows.A new direction from there means, what?

Federal tax revenues are at all-time highs.A new direction from there means, what?

The Federal deficit is down almost 50%, just as predicted over last year.A new direction from there means. what?

Home valuations are up 200% over the past 3.5 years.A new direction from there means, what?

Inflation is in check, hovering at 20 year lows.A new direction from there means, what?

Not a single terrorist attack on US soil since 9/11/01.A new direction from there means, what?

Osama bin Laden is living under a rock in a dark cave, having not surfacedin years, if he's alive at all, while 95% of Al Queda's top dogs are either deador in custody, cooperating with US Intel.A new direction from there means, what?

Several major terrorist attacks already thwarted by US and British Intel,including the recent planned attack involving 10 Jumbo Jets being exploded in mid-air over major US cities in order to celebrate the anniversary of the 9/11/01 attacks.A new direction from there means, what?

Just as President Bush foretold us on a number of occasions, Iraq was to be made "ground zero" for the war on terrorism -- and just as President Bush said they would, terrorist cells from all over the region are arriving from theshadows of their hiding places and flooding into Iraq in order to get their faces blown off by US Marines rather than boarding planes and heading to the United States to wage war on us here.A new direction from there means, what?

Now let me see, do I have this right? I can expect:

The economy to go South

Illegals to go North

Taxes to go Up

Employment to go Down

Terrorism to come In

Tax breaks to go Out

Social Security to go Away

Health Care to go the same way gas prices have gone

But what the heck!

I can gain comfort by knowing that Nancy P, Hillary C, John K, Edward K, Howard D, Harry R and Obama have worked hard to create a comprehensive National Security Plan, Health Care Plan, Immigration Reform Plan, Gay Rights Plan, Same Sex Marriage Plan, Abortion On Demand Plan, Tolerance of Everyone and Everything Plan, How to Return all Troops to the U.S. in The Next Six Months Plan, A Get Tough Plan, adapted from the French Plan by the same name and a How Everyone Can Become as Wealthy as We Are Plan.

I forgot the No More Katrina Storm Plan.

Now I know why I feel good after the elections. I am going to be able to sleep so much better at nights knowing these dedicated politicians are thinking of me and my welfare.

Muslims: You Worry Me

From an e-mail message being distributed. It's worth directing this at CAIR.

The paper stated today that some Muslim doctor is saying we are profiling him because he has been checked three times while getting on an airplane.

"The following is a letter From an American Airlines pilot. This well spoken man very accurately says what is in his heart ....read, absorb and pass on....it's time to get answers from those who claim their terrorist members do not represent them. Why are their leaders not LOUDLY AND FIERCELY AND CONTINUOUSLY condemning their visible murderous brethren?

YOU WORRY ME!

By American Airlines Pilot - Captain John Maniscalco

"I've been trying to say this since 9-11: you worry me. I wish you didn't. I wish when I walked down the streets of this country that I love, that your color and culture still blended with the beautiful human landscape we enjoy in this country. But you don't blend in anymore. I notice you, and it worries me.

I notice you because I can't help it anymore. People from your homelands, professing to be Muslims, have been attacking and killing my fellow citizens and our friends for more than 20 years now. I don't fully understand their grievances and hate but I know that nothing can justify the inhumanity of their attacks.

On September 11, nineteen ARAB-MUSLIMS hijacked four jetliners in my country. They cut the throats of women in front of children and brutally stabbed to death others. They took control of those planes and crashed them into buildings killing thousands of proud fathers, loving sons, wise grandparents, elegant daughters, best friends, favorite coaches, fearless public servants, and children's mothers.

The Palestinians Celebrated, The Iraqis were overjoyed as was most of the Arab world. So I notice you now. I don't want to be worried. I don't want to be consumed by the same rage and hate and prejudice that has destroyed the soul of these terrorists. But I need your help. As a rational American, trying to protect my country and family in an irrational and unsafe world, I must know how to tell the difference between you, and the Arab/Muslim terrorist.

How do I differentiate between the true Arab/Muslim-Americans and the Arab/Muslims in our communities who are attending our schools, enjoying our parks, and living in OUR communities under the protection of OUR constitution, while they plot the next attack that will slaughter these same good neighbors and children? The events of September 11th changed the answer. It is not my responsibility to determine which of you embraces our great country, with ALL of its religions, with ALL of its different citizens, with all of its faults. It is time for every Arab/Muslim in this country to determine it for me.

I want to know, I demand to know, and I have a right to know whether or not you love America. Do you pledge allegiance to its flag? Do you proudly display it in front of your house, or on your car?

Do you pray in your many daily prayers that Allah will bless this nation, that He will protect and prosper it? Or do you pray that Allah with destroy it in one of your “Jihads"? Are you thankful for the freedom that only this nation affords? A freedom that was paid for by the blood of hundreds of thousands of patriots who gave their lives for this country? Are you willing to preserve this freedom by paying the ultimate sacrifice?

Do you love America? If this is your commitment, then I need YOU to start letting ME know about it.

Your Muslim leaders in this nation should be flooding the media at this time with hard facts on your faith, and what hard actions you are taking as a community and as a religion to protect the United States of America. Please, no more benign overtures of regret for the death of the innocent because I worry about who you regard as innocent. No more benign overtures of condemnation for the unprovoked attacks because I worry about what is unprovoked to you. I am not interested in any more sympathy... I am only interested in action. What will you do for America - our great country -- at this time of crisis, at this time of war?

I want to see Arab-Muslims waving the AMERICAN flag in the streets. I want to hear you chanting "Allah Bless America " I want to see young Arab/Muslim men enlisting in the military. I want to see a commitment of money, time, and emotion to the victims of this butchering and to this nation as a whole. The FBI has a list of over 400 people they want to talk to regarding the WTC attack. Many of these people live and socialize in Muslim communities. You know them. You know where they are.

Hand them over to us, now! But I have seen little even approaching this sort of action. Instead I have seen an already closed and secretive community close even tighter. You have disappeared from the streets. You have posted armed security guards at your facilities.

You have threatened lawsuits. You have screamed for protection from reprisals.

The very few Arab/Muslim representatives that HAVE appeared in the media were defensive and equivocating. They seemed more concerned with making sure that the United States proves who was responsible before taking action. They seemed moreconcerned with protecting their fellow Muslims from violence directed towards them in the United States and abroad than they did with supporting our country and denouncing "leaders" like Khadafi, Hussein, Farrakhan, and Arafat.

If the true teachings of Islam proclaim tolerance and peace and love for all people then I want chapter and verse from the Koran and statements from popular Muslim leaders to back it up. What good is it if the teachings in the Koran are good and pure and true when your "leaders" are teaching fanatical interpretations, terrorism, and intolerance?

It matters little how good Islam SHOULD BE if large numbers of the world's Muslims interpret the teachings of Mohammed incorrectly and adhere to a degenerative form of the religion. A form that has been demonstrated to us over and over again. A form whose structure is built upon a foundation of violence, death, and suicide. A form whose members are recruited from the prisons around the world. A form whose members (some as young as five years old) are seen day after day, week in and week out, year after year, marching in the streets around the world, burning effigies of our presidents, burning the American flag, shooting weapons into the air. A form whose members convert from a peaceful religion, only to take up arms against the great United States of America, the country of their birth. A form whose rules are so twisted, that their traveling members refuse to show their faces at airport security checkpoints, in the name of Islam.

Do you and your fellow Muslims hate us because our women proudly show their faces in public rather than cover up like a shameful whore? Do you and your fellow Muslims hate us because we drink wine with dinner, or celebrate Christmas? Do you and your fellow Muslims hate us because we have befriended Israel, the ONLY FRIENDLY CIVILIZED SOCIETY in the Muslim/Arab area, that thinks and acts like most Americans.

And if you and your fellow Muslims hate us, then why in the world are you even here? Are you here to take our money? Are you here to undermine our peace and stability? Are you here to destroy us? If so, I want you to leave. I want you to go back to your desert sandpit where women are treated like rats and dogs. I want you to take your religion, your friends, and your family back to your Islamic extremists, and STAY THERE! We will NEVER give in to your influence, your retarded mentality, your twisted, violent, intolerant religion.

We will NEVER allow the attacks of September 11, or any others for that matter, to take away that which is so precious to us: Our rights under the greatest constitution in the world. I want to know where every Arab/ Muslim in this country stands and I think it is my right and the right of every true citizen of this country to demand it. A right paid for by the blood of thousands of my brothers and sisters who died protecting the very constitution that is protecting you and your family. I am pleading with you to let me know. I want you here as my brother, my neighbor, my friend, As a fellow American. But there can be no gray areas or ambivalence regarding your allegiance and it is up to YOU, to show ME, where YOU stand." "Until then you worry me"

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

The rule of thumb for a free society should be that it infringes liberties rarely, but when it does so it is for important reasons. Today, that thumb has been cast down, Caesar-like, pointing in the opposite direction. We have democratized the small assaults on freedom so that everyone must endure them, while we caterwaul about the tyranny of any real inconvenience that might fall “disproportionately” on the few. We ban using trans fats for millions but flinch at the idea that some kid might have to endure the Pledge of Allegiance or a moment of silence in school if it conflicts with his conscience. Everyone must surrender his shoes, his regular-sized toothpaste and shampoo at the airport, but we man the barricades to protect a few young Muslim men from being inconvenienced for an extra five minutes at the airport.

Free speech is most restricted where it is most important — in political contests near Election Day — while it is maximized to an absurd level at the fringes of culture and decency. Banning “hate speech” from everybody’s lips is a progressive priority, but electronic eavesdropping on a few terrorists is an impermissible leap down the slippery slope to the police state.

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

It's the fear of having you head cut off; of being blown up by a bomb, of dying in a hijacked airliner or in the building hit by the jetliners, of hbeing raped by Moslems "youth" in Oslo. But none of those things are real, are they ... er, never mind.

Monday, January 08, 2007

It is a story of third world degradation, mining corporations, environmentalists, power and lies, and it comes with a twist.The feature-length documentary follows the Michael Moore template of championing the underdog, in this case impoverished communities in Romania, Madagascar and Chile, but instead of attacking the mines it goes for the ecologists.

Mine Your Own Business, whose British premiere is this week, casts the green movement as the influential villain of a worldwide campaign to block development and deny people the chance of jobs and a decent life.

Accompanied by an unemployed 23-year-old Romanian miner, Gheorge Lucian, he visited a proposed mining site in Madagascar and meets the American representative of the World Wildlife Fund. In a Michael Moore-type ambush, the unwitting villain shows off his catamaran and plans for a seaside home before explaining that impoverished locals do not need development to be happy.

Duke Raped: Social Justice for the Gang of 88.

But the larger point the "Group of 88" were making was not about the rape. That was the take-off point. The theme was about oppressed black people and women and racist, sexist, rich white men. The three lacrosse players were the Duke faculty’s “Great White Defendants” straight from Tom Wolfe’s “Bonfire of the Vanities.”

It was about “social justice.” A justice that allowed OJ Simpson to get away with murder because he was black and it was time to put one over on “The Man.” Here we have the mirror image, the doppelganger of OJ, a group of rich white jocks accused by a black stripper of rape. And although DNA, the magic bullet of modern criminal forensics clears them, their individual guilt or innocence is not, has never been, the issue. For the “Group of 88” the hypocrisy of tenured elites knows no bounds. For them the issue is white male guilt, forever and always. And if it means putting three innocent white guys in jail for the rest of their lives; well, as John Dewey said about Stalin's brave new world, you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. Racial, sexual and economic justice will be served over the lives of the three white guys. It's a price Cathy and the "88" are glad to pay.

So now we have Davidson defending the “88” with an impassioned appeal in the Raleigh News & Observer. She refers to the actions sparked by the Duke rape allegations as a “social disaster.”

And it is. Because she and 87 other members of the Duke faculty conspired to create this social disaster. But the social disaster is more than just a group of privileged, high influence, highly paid members of the intellectual community creating a lynch mob that took to the streets and called for the castration of the lacrosse players.

There was not time for the truth to be discovered:

We’re turning up the volume in a moment when some of the most vulnerable among us are being asked to quiet down while we wait. To the students speaking individually and to the protestors making collective noise, thank you for not waiting and for making yourselves heard. [from the manifesto of the "88"]

It is symptomatic of the social disaster that has befallen the American university system where tenured radicals play with the minds of our children. Where student enter believing in America and leave hating our culture, denigrating our past and agitating to create a future that is based on systems that have failed, and failed spectacularly, in other places and times.

It is a social disaster that has elevated the likes of Cathy Davidson who said:

To the students speaking individually and to the protestors making collective noise, thank you for not waiting and for making yourselves heard."--Group of 88 statement, April 6

And today claims:

I am positive I am not the only professor who was and continues to be adamant about the necessity for fair and impartial legal proceedings for David, Collin and Reade."--N&O, today

This is not the writing of someone who is aware of the world, who realizes that the past is not dropped down the memory hole but can be resurrected and held up to her and in her own words accuse her of leading an academic and racial lynch mob.

Read the manifesto again and note:

If it turns out that these students are guilty, I want them expelled.

The “if” is a sop to the rule of law, the sifting of evidence. But there is no question that the manifesto assumes the "white, rich, privileged" lacrosse players guilt. The “if” is a sick aside about seeing justice done while mobs are urged to take to the streets.

It is the Cathy Davidsons of the world who have created the social disaster that allows a creature like Mike Nifong, the Durham District Attorney, to believe that by pursuing a false charge against the lacrosse players that he can win an election. And he was right. He knew his constituency. It is the social disaster that even now provides cover for the ongoing persecution of the three lacrosse players when everyone except the “88” and the race hustlers of Durham know that no crime occurred.

There is a social disaster occurring. Cathy Davidson, living in the Duke echo chamber, where everyone is diverse but everyone thinks exactly as she does, can not see that she is part and parcel of the ongoing social disaster that is the American academy. I demand Social Justice for Cathy Davidson and the "Gang of 88." Good and hard.